So suggests this alarmist frontpage headline over at Politico:
NYT reporter warns of one-term Obama
Scaaary. The crux of the story:
White House reporters for The New York Times predict that the market collapse will force President-elect Barack Obama to abandon for now many of his campaign promises.If his stimulus plan "doesn't work out, he may very well be a one-term president," said Jeff Zeleny, who covered Obama's campaign. "It's hard to imagine that he could be reelected if the economy's in the exact same position four years from now."
"A lot of the things he said on the campaign trail you can now dispense with," said correspondent Peter Baker. "For the moment he has to focus on the economy."
This story reminded me of a line from one of my favorite movies, Broadcast News, when Aaron Altman (Albert Brooks) looks on as Tom Grunick (William Hurt) cuts to a shot of himself tearing up in one of his stories, and he remarks:
Let's never forget, we're the real story, not them.
Reporters saying stupid conventional beltway shit is news? Really? Of course it would be for Politico, whose favorite post-election narrative has been to document all the promises that Obama won't keep, even before he's sworn in. So, when some New York Times reporters -- code for "liberals" -- said they suspect that Obama's agenda would be compromised as a result of the economic crisis and that it could lead to a one term presidency, Politico jumped on it. For them, it's pure gold!
The fact is, this is a really dangerous narrative to advance. Clearly Politico has made a conscious decision to establish an adversarial relationship with Obama, perhaps in an attempt to prove their independent bona fides. But what would actually be helpful to, ya know, the country and stuff, is to help solidify an alternate narrative, one that argues that the economic crisis is an opportunity for bold change, not an obstacle to it and that the stimulus package is itself a means to begin fulfilling his promises by investing in green jobs and making health care more efficient and accessible, not that the two are mutually exclusive.
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